


Dysfunctional Since 1995

by Zethsaire



Series: Dysfunction [6]
Category: Smallville, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice (Comics)
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Father Figures, Father-Son Relationship, Hate Sex, Lex tries so hard, Love/Hate, M/M, Multi, Red Kryptonite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 12:50:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zethsaire/pseuds/Zethsaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lex isn't falling for Clark - he isn't.  They just get together and fuck every now again.  So what is he supposed to do when Clark comes over for a fuck, and then doesn't leave?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dysfunctional Since 1995

**Author's Note:**

> Like my other 'Dysfunction' fics, this is a mash up of characterizations and timelines. Lex Luthor's character is heavily pulled from Smallville, the earlier seasons, and minorly from his Young Justice appearances. And like other fics in this series, Lex and Clark's relationship is anything but healthy. They know it's not healthy, but they do it anyway.
> 
> Warnings: Language, unhealthy relationships, hate sex, bad parenting, dubious consent, drug use (Red K)
> 
> In terms of timeline, this is set several years after Jay/Tim/Kon, and is set after the end of Match, which is still a work in progress.

Dysfunctional Since 1995

"Since you haven't tried to arrest me, I can only assume you want to get laid."

Clark rubbed his hand through his hair sheepishly. "Lois is in one of her, 'I don't need a man to define me' phases, so we're on a break."

“I see.” Lex snapped his laptop shut. “And you thought I'd just drop everything and screw your brains out?”

“Well. Um...I was hoping.”

Lex sighed. He was just self destructive enough to agree, and Clark knew that. They'd had an off and on affair since Clark's twentieth birthday. They'd nearly kill each other for a year or two, and then have a week of furious sex. And then Clark would say something particularly self-righteous, or Lex would make a morally ambiguous business decision, and the relationship would come to a violent end. 

Honestly, Lex didn't know why Clark kept coming back. It couldn't be just the sex; surely there were male superheros who would fulfill that need for him. Lex knew why he himself accepted it every time. He'd always been obsessively possessive, and there was something about _owning_ Clark, even if it was only in bed, that was just...irresistible. Even if he knew it would end terribly, even if they didn't really trust each other, regardless of their agreement. Clark wouldn't try to take Lex in, and Lex wouldn't experiment on him – not while they were having sex. Or when there was a family emergency; but Lex was fairly certain Match was the last super clone, so hopefully they wouldn't be having any of those any time soon.

He pressed the intercom button, and said, “Mercy, cancel all my appointments for the day.” He glanced over to where Clark was already unbuttoning his cheap suit jacket. “Make it the week.”

“Sir. May I ask what code is in effect?”

“Code 37, Mercy. Everything's fine.”

“You have a code for this?” Clark asked dubiously. He was down to his undershirt now, and Lex took a moment to appreciate the sculpted muscles before reaching up to undo his own buttons. He'd stopped letting Clark undress him after their first sexual encounter; he'd never found a replacement for that jacket.

“I have a code for everything.”

“Why am I not surprised?” 

Clark shimmied out of his pants, and stepped towards Lex, lust in his eyes. “Do you have the ring, Lex?”

“Of course I do. Are we clear?”

Clark got the slightly unfocused look in his eyes that meant he was using his x-ray vision. He frowned, and walked across the room to a vase of flowers. He stuck his hand in and pulled out a sleek black bug with the Lexcorp logo on it. “This yours?”

“Mercy's. You can crush it.” He didn't want anyone to listen in on what they were doing, even his bodyguards.

Another pass around the room had Clark nodding in satisfaction, until he looked down at his own clothes. Then he scowled, and fished out a particularly ugly tie from the pile. He was glaring at the tie clip, which was apparently bugged, as well as being a crime against fashion everywhere.

“Bruce?”

“Who else?” Clark muttered, crushing that bug as well. He must really be desperate for sex; he didn't even yell at Lex for using Bruce's real name. Not that Batman's identity had been very hard for Lex to figure out. He'd gone to school with Bruce, and he was a genius, if he did say so himself.

By this time, Lex was also down to his underwear. He opened a drawer on his desk, and pulled out a lead lined box. Inside was a large silver ring with a curious fitting. It had a lead shield covering the fitting, which could be retracted to expose the red kryptonite setting inside, with a glass overlay to keep curious fingers from brushing the lead, which could be just as toxic to humans as the stone underneath, even if it did nothing to Clark.

He approached Clark warily, and held out the ring. “No fucking in any other room unless one of us sweeps it first, do you understand? I don't care how high you are.”

“Of course. I don't want anyone recording it either.”

Lex nodded, and let him take it while he went to activate the privacy glass, blinds, and the lead shielding. He didn't want Kon-El or Match deciding to visit while they were busy. That had actually happened once, though Match had left without coming in, and as far as Lex knew, Clark hadn't ever noticed. At least it hadn't been Kon-El; the boy was always pining over his fathers getting back together, and refused to accept the reality of their relationship no matter how many times it was explained to him.

He'd just finished with the last window when a warm, hard body pressed up against him. He wasn't surprised. Clark's hands roamed across his skin, as if to confirm that nothing had changed about Lex since the last time they'd done this. He was the same as ever, he knew, except for fresh hair implants in his eyebrows and lashes, and a few more stress lines around his eyes. Clark didn't seem to care about those, because he was hungrily sucking a mark into Lex's neck.

Everything was so much simpler when Clark was high. He wanted sex, he liked expensive things, and he liked Lex. All that morality just seemed to fall away and leave him a more raw, more _human_ being than his god impersonating persona as Superman. Of course, he also lost the ability to reason and have deep discussions, but they didn't do that any more even when Clark wasn't high, so it wasn't that much of a loss. Still. Even knowing that Clark had chosen this – chosen _him_ , it wasn't the same when he had to get high to go through with it. A Pyrrhic victory, at best.

“Mmm, Lex. You smell good.”

Yes, always the conversationalist. Lex leaned back into him, feeling the hard muscle shifting underneath smooth, bronze skin, feeling Clark's eager breath on his ear, and his tongue working across his jaw and licking into his mouth. They didn't usually kiss; they'd decided after the first few times that it was just better not to. It must have been a while, for Clark. It had been just as long for Lex; longer, probably, since he didn't have a regular lay, even one who decided she didn't need him every few months. There had been someone, oh, it was probably eight months ago now. A mix between business and pleasure; he'd let Lex fuck him and had still driven a hard bargain the day after. Lex had almost felt bad for absorbing the man's company.

He didn't really understand how after three years of death threats and plots and Clark's righteous wrath they could still fit together so well. But they did. Their bodies remembered, and their lips and legs recalled how to wrap around each other. Hands knew how to give the greatest pleasure. For instance, if Lex grabbed Clark right there - yes, Clark moaned in delight. Lex could be as rough as he wanted - as rough as they both wanted, and Clark couldn't be hurt. Clark could, and did, break Lex’s bones during their frenzy, but he healed fast enough these days that it only put a sharp edge on his pleasure.

Clark came to be fucked, not to fuck Lex, though he usually ended up doing that too. He wanted what he couldn't get from Lois, and they both knew it. So Lex fucked him into the carpet, hard enough to leave rug burns if Clark had been anyone else. Clark didn't have a prostate, but he did have a spot deep inside that Lex could barely reach that made him scream and come when Lex hit it. Clark would have been embarrassed, but this was Clark on red K, so instead he just turned the tables on Lex, undulating his body in a way that would have been impossible for anyone else, gripping Lex's body between his powerful thighs until Lex found his release.

It was never just one round with them, so after they'd cleaned up and Lex'd had a drink, they started again. Lex took them straight back to his bedroom - the one he actually slept in, not the one he usually saved for company. He made Clark scan the place, though he wasn't surprised when the alien said he didn't find anything. Lex let his security sweep for bugs most of the time, but he checked his bedroom himself, every morning when he got up and every night before he went to bed. He rarely found anything, but when he did, it only fueled his paranoia of more.

Lex had designed the red K ring on a timer, so eventually the lead shielding would descend back over the stone on its own and force Clark down from his high. He'd learned that on red K Clark was capable of actually working himself past exhaustion without realizing it, much like an under hydrated ecstasy user. Useful to know when they were killing each other, less desirable when they were fucking. 

They managed to have time for Lex to screw Clark twice more and Clark take him once before the ring closed. Clark literally passed out afterwords, for which Lex was eternally grateful. He really didn't want to listen to any of Clark's self-depreciating bullshit. He wavered back and forth between sleeping in his own bed beside Clark and using another bedroom. On one hand, he disliked the intimacy it implied. On the other...He knew he was about as safe as he could be next to an invulnerable being, and Clark wouldn't do anything because at the very least that would be breaking his word and he'd never let Lex hold that over his head. And it was his bed, dammit.

Clark was gone when Lex woke the next morning. Hardly surprising. It wasn't like he expected the alien to stay for breakfast, though there was the distinct possibility that he'd show up again when he got off work. Possibility became certainty when he saw that the ring was gone. That was a bit surprising - Clark never took it with him.

All of the inconsistencies had Lex on edge all day. He thought of and discarded dozens of scenarios, including clones, androids, and brainwashing. Everything else was just too similar to not have been Clark, and an android wouldn't have reacted to the kryptonite. It was more like...like they were **friends** again. Lex didn't know how he felt about that. He didn't do stable relationships. All his girlfriends went crazy or tried to murder him. Though - that didn't immediately rule Clark out.

No. They didn't have a relationship. They never would have one, and Lex needed to assassinate that thought before it could lodge itself in his brain. They did **not** have a relationship.

Three months later, he was trying desperately to believe that. The only other alternative was that he was falling completely, irrevocably in love with Clark Kent, and if that wasn't an open invitation to get his heart ripped to shreds he didn't know what was.

But they were talking now. Clark spent time with him without wearing his ring, which he now kept on a chain around his neck. They'd actually gone to the opera last week for Christ's sake. Clark had defended their relationship, to **Lois**. Kon-el was ecstatic. It was surreal. He'd even had an acquaintance of his casually check Clark for mental tampering, because this couldn't be happening. But it was, and Lex was actually enjoying it.

Then, seven months, twenty three days and sixteen minutes after it began - not that Lex was counting - it ended. Lex got up early, like he always did, but Clark wasn't there. On the table next to his morning coffee was an open newspaper with a note stuck to it, and the ring. There was an article circled in red, and the note said, _I know you're responsible for this. It's over, Lex. I can't do this any more._

He'd been expecting this since the day he'd found Clark had taken his ring, but it still hurt. He took a few deep breaths, and slowly lowered his head to the table. Now what? Clark had rejected him and it hadn't even been - well. Clearly to Clark's black and white morality it was completely reprehensible. But he'd had those scientists killed for a reason, and he'd do it again, even knowing what he'd lose. What they had done to Match, what they had done to his _**son.**_ They didn't deserve the luxury of prison. They had tortured and killed dozens of his children, and that, in turn, was what Lex had done to them. He only wished he'd kept evidence in a way that would allow Match to see it. Hopefully Harper would describe it to him, in detail. He'd made sure to have the story run on the Braille newspaper Match read.

His arm itched with the desire to sweep paper and coffee off the table in his anger, but he resisted, if only to preserve his suit from the coffee stains he'd certainly get on it. So what if Clark had left him? He'd expected this; planned for it even. So he drank his coffee and went to his penthouse office, where he buried himself in his work, crushing several competitors, merging at least a dozen smaller companies with his own. Even after all that he didn't really feel any better, so he pulled up his private databases and looked over his less legal work.

Since he'd started dating Clark seriously he hadn't really touched any of his more dubious projects—weapons manufacturing, less than legal medical experimentation, working with Kryptonite. Most of the work was sadly out of date, and he spent the day organizing and updating his files, while his anger and hurt built up in the back of his brain like a cesspit of negative feelings. At least one of the weapons he'd designed against Superman had promise; he'd learned a lot more about Clark after spending so much time with him. And now that they weren't together, using all that knowledge was fair game. While the thought of punishing Clark by laying off a few thousand people had a certain appeal – Clark couldn't stand it when his actions hurt others – Lex wanted more than that. He wanted violence and blood and above all, he wanted it to be _personal_. Clark couldn't even be bothered to break up with him in person, and god forbid he actually _talk_ to Lex about any of the issues he might have with Lex's behavior. Not that he probably would have approved of Lex's actions even if he had known the truth, but still. He could have asked.

It was late, past eight in the evening when someone finally interrupted him. If they hadn't, he probably would have spent the night plotting. Instead, Mercy gave a sharp rap on the door, and announced that Van-El was there to see him. Lex smirked. Match hated when Mercy called him that. He preferred humans to call him Calvin; he only used the name Van-El to irritate Clark.

“Come in.”

Match had his cane and his dog with him, so he must have been out in the city before he'd stopped by. Lex was glad that they were no longer pretending that Match wasn't blind. He'd tired of it long before the clone had come out and admitted his lack of sight to him. It did grate that he hadn't managed to completely salvage the clone and thus circumvent his father's greatest project, but Match had explained that he'd been going blind before he'd been put back in cryo, and that had eased the sting a little.

Kandor looked at Lex with disinterest, as she always did. Match's dog didn't seem to like anyone other than Match and Harper. She tolerated Lex more than other humans, though that might only have been because Match himself liked Lex more than other humans. Kandor was a Kryptonian hybrid, apparently mixed with Kon-El's superdog and an Alaskan husky. She was extremely intelligent, and beautiful. She'd also inherited all the superdog's powers; he'd seen her fly with Match before, _and_ seen her rip an android sent after Match to shreds. He wished he'd been in on the design, and not just because she was a beautiful dog. It would have been nice to be able to give Match something that was still alive.

Match retracted his cane and held his hand out in front of him, stretching his TTK field across the floor in front of him so he could 'see' where he was going. Lex could see the stirring currents of his powers work their way across the carpet. When he found one of the chairs in front of Lex's desk, it pulled itself across the floor towards him, and he sat down. 

“Lay down, Kandor,” he said sharply, and the dog came over to lay against his feet, panting slightly as she looked around the office, wary for anything that might hurt her master.

Satisfied, Match turned towards him and took off his sunglasses, looking in the general direction of his face with his strangely colored eyes. “Kon-El said that you and Kal-El are no longer together.”

Well, the clone had always been abrupt. Lex was trying to teach him tact, but it was slow going at best. “Clark didn't approve of something I had taken care of.”

“Roy read me the news. Was it slow?”

“Excruciatingly.”

“Good.” Match's hands clenched into fists. “I wish I could have been there.”

“I'm glad you approve.”

“I do. Harper does too, though he'd never admit it in front of his other friends. I can see why Kal-El is upset, though.”

Now Lex was angry. “He didn't even _ask_ about it. If he cared about you half as much as I do-”

“He'd have had them arrested. And they would have gone to jail in a maximum security prison for the rest of their lives. And it wouldn't have been enough. But he doesn't understand that.”

“Then he shouldn't have started something he didn't want to finish!” Lex snarled.

Match cocked his head to the side, like he'd found that statement particularly interesting. “Do you want him back?”

“Of course I do.”

“Really.” There was a dubious gaze in the general direction of his Kryptonite research, which Lex knew Match couldn't see. Were his patterns really that predictable?

“It doesn't matter. He won't come back.”

“I think he might.” Match reached down to scratch absently behind Kandor's ears. “Kon-El has been doing much better since you two have been together, you know.”

Lex stared at him. 

“He's been keeping out of trouble; neither he nor his boyfriends have been in the paper much, and what there has been is good press; charity banquets and that sort of thing. His grades are up almost twenty percent over what they were when you were separated. He's spent fifteen percent more time with Kal-El than he did before, and more than half of that time has been outside missions. 

“Speaking of superhero work, his abilities in that area have also increased. He's had a 98% mission success rate, as opposed to a mere 73% success rate previous to your relationship. He spends time training that he did not before. In short – your relationship with Kal-El is good for him.”

“And your general health and behavior have also improved,” Lex pointed out, for the first time today thinking that perhaps he didn't have to give Clark up after all.

“That is because my treatments ended last month.”

“Kal-El doesn't need to know that.”

“True.” Match nodded to himself, and then got to his feet. “I think that is more than enough meddling on my behalf. Don't bother telling Kal-El I stopped by.”

“You wouldn't want him to think you cared.”

Match scowled. “I don't. But you're much more reasonable and easier to get along with when you're getting laid regularly. I'd like to keep it that way. Good night.”

“Good night, Calvin.”

Once Match had gone, Lex went back to his desk and picked up the phone. Clark picked up on the fourth ring, sounding as angry and hurt as Lex had felt before talking to his son. “What do you want, Lex? I don't have anything to say to you.”

“Really? You said everything you wanted to say on a post-it note? Even for a journalist that _is_ impressive.”

“Don't be an ass, Lex.”

“Why? You're the one who left me, after all.”

“Because you had people _murdered_!”

“They deserved it,” Lex snapped. “Have you ever asked our children what those scientists did to them? Have you read the files? I don't regret a single thing about what was done to those bastards. I hope they rot in hell.”

“Those – those were the people who experimented on Kon-El?” Clark whispered. Then he found his resolve and his voice hardened again. “It doesn't matter. They should have been tried in a court of law, not tortured to death and left in a field to rot.”

“Why? They did the same thing to over three hundred of your clones, Clark. Not to mention all the experiments they did on them _before_ they died.”

“It – it doesn't matter. Murder is wrong, Lex. No matter what. I can't be with you if you're going to kill people. I just can't.”

“What if I didn't? Have anyone murdered, I mean. Would you still leave me without any warning the second I did something else you didn't approve of?”

“I don't know, Lex. We're just so different. Your morals and mine aren't even close to the same.”

“We made it work for seven months Clark. Why can't we keep making it work? I'm not going to make all the sacrifices; if you really want to be with me you're going to just have to deal with some of my decisions. And if you can't then – why the fuck did you start this in the first place?”

“I don't know if I can, Lex. I want to, I do. I wanted back what we had in Smallville, when we were friends. I didn't approve of everything you did then, but we still made it work. And Kon-El wants a family so badly. I want to be a father, Lex. I thought I could handle it. I just...I don't know.”

“Then do it for him. Kon has been doing so much better since we've been together. Haven't you noticed?”

“I have.”

“Like it or not, he's our kid. And Match is, too. And I do want to be with you, Clark. I always have. But you have to compromise with me. Are you willing to give it another try?”

There was a great exhale of breath, large enough to probably knock down a small building if Clark angled it just right. Then Clark said, “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I'll be right there.”

Lex hadn't changed the codes on the balcony door, so by the time he hung up the phone, Clark was there. He looked like he might try to swoop in and kiss Lex, so he held up a hand. 

“No. Not until you promise me something.”

“What's that?” Clark looked nervous.

Lex's voice was like steel. “ _Never_ break up with me in a post-it, ever, _ever_ again.”

Clark grinned. “I promise.”

He leaned in for a kiss then, and proved to Lex, once and for all, that make-up sex was, in fact, one of the best things in existence.


End file.
